All-Encompassing Christopher Nolan Discussion Thread

The following is Christopher Nolan's filmography:



Movie - Year - RT score - IMDB score

Following - 1998 - 78% - 7.6/10

Memento - 2000 - 92% - 8.6/10

Insomnia - 2002 - 92% - 7.2/10

Batman Begins - 2005 - 85% - 8.3/10

The Prestige - 2006 - 76% - 8.5/10

The Dark Knight - 2008 - 94% - 9.0/10

Inception - 2011 - 86% - 8.8/10

The Dark Knight Rises - 2012 - 88% - 8.6/10

Interstellar - 2014 - ?? - ??



Interesting facts:



1) TDK, TDKR, and BB are ranked #1, 2, and 3 among comic book movies on IMDB. V for Vendetta is 4th, Sin City is 5th, and Avengers is 6th.

2) The Prestige is his worst film in terms of critical acclaim, with a 76% RT score.

3) Christopher Nolan doesn't have an email account or cell phone. I guess that helps him focus better.



His wikipedia page is a good read:

http://ift.tt/RWj1Tg

Quote:

Themes Nolan's work explores existential, ethical and epistemological themes such as subjective experience, distortion of memory, human morality, the nature of time, and construction of personal identity.[125] "I'm fascinated by our subjective perception of reality, that we are all stuck in a very singular point of view, a singular perspective on what we all agree to be an objective reality, and movies are one of the ways in which we try to see things from the same point of view".[119][126] His characters are often emotionally disturbed and morally ambiguous, facing the fears and anxieties of loneliness, guilt, jealousy, and greed; in addition to the larger themes of corruption and conspiracy. By grounding "everyday neurosis – our everyday sort of fears and hopes for ourselves" in a heightened reality, Nolan makes them more accessible to a universal audience. Another signature theme is characters refusing the passing of time and letting go of the past. Writing for Film Philosophy, Emma Bell points out that the characters in Inception do not literally time-travel, "rather they escape time by being stricken in it – building the delusion that time has not passed, and is not passing now. They feel time grievously: willingly and knowingly destroying their experience by creating multiple simultaneous existences."[113] Jason Ney of Film Noir Foundation insists that Nolan's later films seem more hopeful and open in regards to the possibility that the characters can escape and overcome these fears.[127] In Nolan's films reality is often an abstract and fragile concept. Alec Price and M. Dawson of Left Field Cinema, noted that the existential crises of conflicted male figures "struggling with the slippery nature of identity" is a prevalent theme in Nolan's work. The actual (or objective) world is of less importance than the way in which we absorb and remember, and it is this created (or subjective) reality that truly matters. "It is solely in the mind and the heart where any sense of permanency or equilibrium can ever be found."[109] According to film theorist Todd McGowan, these "created realities" also reveal the ethical and political importance of creating fictions and falsehoods. Nolan's films typically deceive spectators about the events that occur and the motivations of the characters, but they do not abandon the idea of truth altogether. Instead, "They show us how truth must emerge out of the lie if it is not to lead us entirely astray." McGowan further argues that Nolan is the first filmmaker to devote himself entirely to the illusion of the medium, calling him a Hegelian filmmaker.[128] The Dark Knight trilogy explored themes of chaos, terrorism, escalation of violence, financial manipulation, utilitarianism, mass surveillance, and class conflicts.[110][129] Batman's arc of rising (philosophically) from a man to "more than just a man", is similar to the Nietzschian Übermensch.[130][131] The films also explore ideas akin to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophical glorification of a simpler, more-primitive way of life and the concept of general will.[132] In Inception, Nolan was inspired by lucid dreaming and dream incubation.[133] The film's characters try to embed an idea in a person's mind without their knowledge, similar to Freud's theories that the unconscious influences one's behavior without their knowledge.[134] Most of the film takes place in interconnected dream worlds; this creates a framework where actions in the real (or dream) worlds ripple across others. The dream is always in a state of emergence, shifting across levels as the characters navigate it.[135] Inception, like Memento and The Prestige, uses metaleptic storytelling devices and follows Nolan's "auteur affinity of converting, moreover, converging narrative and cognitive values into and within a fictional story."[136]